EPILOGUES
by jkwasher
Summary: A series of epilogues to the Walt and Vic relationship. These may be stand-alone snippets or the ends to other stories. They may be in strict accordance with shipping HEAs, as in #1, or some may have other endings.
1. Chapter 1

**Epilogue #1**

_**Okay, in the spirit of "Proposals," which I plan to add to little by little, is a series of epilogues to various interpretations of the Walt and Vic story. Since we don't have a clue yet where Season #4 is headed, we are still free to ship and imagine without AU considerations. These may become moot at some point, but the shippers among us may enjoy these as stand-alone snippets. I'm not asking for contributions as I did with "Proposals." There has been a little interest but as yet no contributions for "Proposals," and I know everybody is busy and writing their own ideas. Enjoy the following prospective visions, and although some may end up *not* in strict shipper HEA accordance, enjoy at least this one, which is just that.**_

It was late May, an almost cloudless day with shirt-sleeve weather at the foot of the Bighorns. More than four years had passed since Janine Reynold's wedding. Walt let Little Henry ride on his shoulders while they walked to the Durant Municipal Park playground, only to be stopped by one of the now-elderly ladies who used to attend Martha's church. He couldn't remember her name right off, but she had always been pleasant to Martha. She stopped him with a smile, and he wondered if she would have the gall to try and pinch Henry's cheek.

"Sheriff, don't tell me you finally have a grandson!"

No, and no, were the correct answers. He was no longer Sheriff, and Henry was not his grandson. Cady had a little girl due in a few months, but silver-tongued devil Henry answered for him better than he might have. Henry had the benefit of being a tall, sturdy toddler with a mop of dark hair he had inherited from his mother's side of the family, and large hazel, almost golden eyes with blue-green flecks in them. He had always thought Henry a really handsome little guy, even if as Henry's dad, he was on the prejudiced side of things.

"No, _Mommy's_ Sheriff! Daddy's _Acting_." He spoke with all the gravitas a slightly grubby three-year-old could muster. It was a little beyond Henry's grasp yet to understand the concept of his daddy temporarily shifting from Consulting Deputy to _Acting Sheriff_.

"That's right, Henry," he said, hoisting him down from shoulders to hip, giving the woman full benefit of one of his best, 'aw, shucks, ma'am,' grins for effect. "I'm officially retired, but stayed on as Consulting Deputy the last couple of years to assist with the more troubling cases. I'll be shifting to Acting Sheriff for just a few months, now, to give the current sheriff a little time off."

"Oh!" said the lady. He squinted a little, thinking. Was she Mary Pratt? That sounded right.

He could not tell whether Mrs. Pratt, who was probably only fifteen years older than Martha, was appalled or amazed at this astonishing revelation. They were, all of them, getting older, he thought.

Henry, a wiggly bundle, twisted around and exclaimed, "_There's_ Mommy!"

Walking, or possibly _waddling_ would be a closer approximation, across the street was his heart, the duly Appointed Sheriff of Absaroka County, Wyoming since his retirement at the beginning of his term, more than two years ago. He had chosen to take early retirement to stay home with Henry, and in less than a month, that would also include the new baby. Retirement to house-husband status had been one of the greatest joys of his life.

With a plethora of local babysitters available, he'd finally been able to occasionally go fishing with Henry Standing Bear, work on the cabin, do a little hunting, and ride Horse to his content. He also had the benefit of the greatest joy, being dad to a _son_, an entirely unexpected twist in his path after a long life in law enforcement. As Lucian had said once, a sheriff was actually a _Wanted Man_ to all the perpetrators he had put away over his career. He had thought he would never make it to retirement, especially with some of the often-stupid chances he had taken after Martha's death, like the duel with Chance Gilbert. Lucian, 'Uncle Loosh-en' to Henry, was maybe most stupefied of everybody.

And there was Vic. He had never for a million years had thought he would be so lucky as to win Vic for his own. Not a public theist, he thanked God for every day he had with her.

Vic had lost none of her allure, but she had certainly lost her waistline, and wore her uniform shirt open over a black tank stretching over her belly, black capris and soft ballet flats. He knew her tactical boots were no longer comfortable over swelling feet. She did not wear her Glock at her waist in deference to lack of said waistline, but instead wore a shoulder holster. It wasn't exactly acceptable Absaroka SD uniform guidelines, but a week ago she had temporarily abdicated to her Consulting Deputy from that lofty perch so he could become Acting Sheriff as she went on maternity leave. Since the holding cells were currently empty during a momentary lull in business, she was in the office today, but only doing personnel work and research in preparation for her longer absence, hence her half-uniformed state.

"Hello, Sheriff Longmire," she said with a fond look, even as Henry launched himself at her. "Mmmm, you're getting SO BIG!" she said, hugging him tight and perching him on her hip, in an obviously often repeated ritual.

"You mean, _Acting_, Mommy. Daddy's _Acting_. _You're_ the _real _sheriff!"

Walt leaned in, gave her a more-than-dutiful kiss, and a wry grin. "Out of the mouth of babes," he said, and then for her ears only, "Hullo, Sheriff Mama."

He turned back to introduce her to Mary Pratt, only to see Mrs. Pratt's mouth opening and closing like a fish.

"This is my wife, Vic, Mrs. Pratt, more often addressed as Sheriff Moretti. She's just taking a few months off to, um…"

"Sounds like?" she asked, always helpful when he was squirming in public.

"Ah, have our baby," he said a little sheepishly.

"That'll work," she said, nuzzling Henry to laughter.

Mrs. Pratt now looked more on the appalled than amazed side of things. _So much for approving the virility of_ _retired sheriffs_, he thought. Mrs. Pratt looked to his mind as if she thought he was more of an Old Perv than husband and dad.

"How—wonderful for you!" she exclaimed with that false cheer from the department of awkwardness department. He suspected she might be thinking of Martha, and could more easily understand her conflicted feelings, if that was the case.

"Yep, it is" agreed Walt, ignoring Mrs. Pratt's discomfort, for Henry was now leaning toward the objective of their visit, the swings. He reached out, plucking Henry from Vic's arms and swung him high. "Am I a swing?" he asked, making the motions.

"No! Want _those _swings! The _high_ ones!" declared Henry and pointed, with all the force of three-year-old determination behind the statement.

"Well, okay, then," Walt said, and deposited Henry to the sidewalk even as his little legs churned toward the swings. He turned back and tipped his hat to Mrs. Pratt. "Nice to see you, ma'am," he said, but looked meaningfully over to Vic.

His love, his life, quickly prompted by his pointed look, said, "It's been a pleasure, Mrs. Pratt." She was still learning to court the constituency during the remainder of his term, in preparation for her first solo election, with Ferg continuing on as Undersheriff. She was also learning to curb her tongue, although she did well around Henry so far.

Mrs. Pratt, "Yes, congratulations, Sheriff, and, er, Sheriff." She nodded her head once and walked on.

He caught Vic's hand in his large one.

"See, that wasn't so bad, was it?"

"Henry was the one who told her I was the sheriff?"

"Yes," he admitted.

"Good boy, I'll make him my Campaign Manager. I hate that fucking stuff."

"I know, but I'll help you. I won a lot of elections. We can do it together."

"You did as little as possible, yet _won_ the _last_ election," she pointed out, "but I may have a chance with the Bear's help, and I'm counting on you, Bear, Little Henry, and Baby Longmire. People love babies, especially politicians' babies."

He grinned. "And the old man who's knocked out two babies in three years…"

She wrinkled her nose in flushed delight. He loved seeing her look a little flustered. "Well, maybe you get _some _credit, but it certainly wasn't for a lack of cooperation!"

He squeezed her hand, but his eyes flitted over to the swings in an automatic Dad Check, where Henry was chasing another little boy around before both throwing themselves across the seats of the swings. It was about time to join Henry as Designated Swing Pusher.

A hand on his sleeve drew his attention back to her.

"Ah, a bit of business before you go, about the Densham case, I need to ask if you and Ferg could serve the warrant later this afternoon. I think maybe Henry and I will go home and read Cat in the Hat about 20 times. I feel a nap coming on."

"Good luck convincing Henry of that."

"I could always drop him off with Sissy later, if I get serious about the nap for me," she said. Cady had become Sissy to Little Henry almost as soon as he could speak.

Maybe Ferg and I'll serve the warrant, leave things in his capable hands, and join you both. Acting Sheriff perk. Old man worn out from making babies, you know."

"Oh, really? Where in the employee handbook, is that perk, pray tell?" He loved it that she still flirted with him after all this time. He hoped she would never stop.

"Under L," he said without hesitation.

"For Longmire?" she asked skeptically.

"For Love."


	2. Chapter 2

**Epilogues**

**Epilogue #2**

**Without Vic**

_**A one-shot, Warning: Downer, NO HEA. "It's a Wonderful Life" without redemption, what might have happened had Vic not come into Walt's life. I can't make this sort of premise too long, I am an HEA person at heart. (WIC rules!)**_

He had quietly retired near the end of his term, better that than lose the next election. The folks of Durant had been forgiving just after Martha had died, but he knew that after a while, he had worn on them. Branch Connally was the new sheriff. Not that the new sheriff would call up either he or Lucian to ask questions, he would just brazen it out, sometimes to near-catastrophic consequences. Branch had even dated Cady for a while, and he'd never even suspected.

Lucian of course, could not keep quiet on the subject over a round of Pappy Van Winkles. Whether it was familial fondness or a general hatred for anything to do with his brother Barlow, was another question.

"Young turd should have left your daughter alone, and is going to get himself killed."

Walt pressed his lips together and shook his head. "Might, at that."

"Didn't you teach him _anything_?"

"Before Martha died, sure. It was just bad timing all around."

Lucian paused, lips thinned. "I get that. You were never the same after, Walt."

He shook his head in agreement. Still wasn't. Guilt over Branch, it joined the guilt for keeping secrets from Cady, for just bowing out and letting _them—_whoever_ they _were_, _that Martha had been battling, win. The casino had been built, and the townspeople would tell him that their little town was becoming more like Sodom and Gomorrah every day.

Ruby had quit as soon as Branch was elected. She didn't say much, but she still called Walt every few days, making up excuses in hopes he would follow up with Ferg, and not abandon the younger man to Branch's authority. He was pretty sure she knew it was a feeble hope.

"I left a casserole at the station for you." It was a ploy for him to visit the station. He knew she meant well, and that she was just checking in. He thought she'd probably quietly grieve if he just walked up into the hills and never came back, or turned his Colt 1911 on himself, so she sweetly pestered him in an attempt to prevent anything like that from happening.

Henry would not give up on him, but had pulled back somewhat since he'd tried to punch his lifelong friend one day after a pithy comment, but missed. A first.

"Forty years and suddenly we are not friends." Walt had not tried to correct him.

No, he was not the same. He had lost on all counts. He no longer knew what was going on in his county, because it was no longer 'his' county, and besides, he didn't care.

Dating had been a joke. He'd been on a couple of dates, one with that Ambrose woman who had the large property on the creek. She had pursued him for a while, and it was flattering in a way, but he just wasn't interested. It was particularly difficult, because with women, he no longer had conversation. He could quote from the classics, but he didn't an acquaintance with popular culture, anymore. Even the idea of small talk, much less intimacy or sex, was almost as esoteric as the notion of a relationship with any of them.

He'd almost bought a new TV and cable in retirement, to numb his mind with banality, but he just couldn't. The static would chew him up, and it would just make him sadder, and then he might someday disappoint Ruby, and he didn't want to do that.

He wasn't interested in much, anymore. The infrequent murder cases were not enough to tempt him to offer, and Branch didn't ask. Ruby had leaked the reality of the consequences of his abdication to him.

"I had to empty a drawer of old files to put in the mounting Cold Case ones. We used to just have a couple of dozen, and before I left, we had maybe fifty. Probably more, now." Nevertheless, it was no longer his problem. Let the voters change the sheriff in the next election if Branch wasn't capable of doing the job.

The cabin was crumbling away, just like him. He was getting a belly not unlike the sagging porch, he would go inside during sunsets, and did nothing to the property to keep it up. He had sold the horses, they were too much work. He had considered calling Jamie and trying some of his newer product, but even that seemed like too much work.

Where once he had a full back porch of wood for the winter, there were barely a few cords left. His power bill for the propane had surged the last winter, but it really didn't matter. With the mortgage paid off after the law-school loans, he had enough from his pension to buy beer, Bee and Pony money, the occasional tank of gasoline and for the extra propane.

Cady had moved to Philadelphia. Even she had given up on him.

"Dad, I just can't stand by and watch you disintegrate from the man you were for mom, and the dad you were for me." She was crying. He hated to make her cry.

With the world giving up on him, he figured it was just a matter of time before one day, he would just give up on the world.

So he unscrewed the top from a fresh Rainier, and pondered the meadow in front of the cabin. Soon it would be time to go in and prevent another sunset from filling his memory, and it would be time to finish the six-pack he had in the fridge while reading Rainer Maria Rilke poetry. Anybody with the name Rainer must be awesome, it was almost like his beer, but the man seemed sad, like he was. Rilke said things like:

_Who has not sat before his own heart's curtain? It lifts: and the scenery is falling apart._

_I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone._

_The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things._

It seemed like Herr Rilke had known of his life before he lived it.

He took another, longer, sip of beer.

He wondered how many beers it would take to give up on the world.


	3. Chapter 3

**Epilogues**

**Epilogue #3**

**Banks of the Powder River**

_**As counterpoint to my 'downer' contribution earlier today, here's one I originally put at the end of my Pop 25 Missing Scene…I cut it from the missing scene but kept it for possible future use. As untidy as my office is, I find I can usually locate what I have written safely tucked away into the OUTS folder. This should hopefully cheer you all up a bit. **_

_**For the reviewer who was surprised Vic wasn't in the last one, I must not have made it clear that it was the whole point, Walt had *never met* her. She wasn't there to make him laugh, make him get up and out there to do what he does best, solving cases, wasn't there to tell him what a shithead he was being, etc. So maybe I should have introduced it as an AU story…maybe it shouldn't have been in Epilogues, if so, mea culpa.**_

_**Oh, and for anyone wondering, Leaving Durant Ch4 has been a booger and had three rewrites so far…Ch5 is already written, go figure. Yes, I'm working on them, and another Missing Scene, but Leaving Durant has not been cooperating with me! The characters keep going in other directions, taking other actions, etc. It also took some figuring to make it make sense. The next installment should be out in a few days.**_

_**Now, as for this epiloguette (is that a word?)…from the Season 4 filming pictures, it appears somebody was paying attention when I kept tweeting during stampedes, "Where are their vests?" So, for your consideration…a snippet from the OUTS bin…**_

He had told her he had a surprise for her. She had two for him, had been planning them for some time, as they strolled along the banks of the Powder River with rucksacks and found a likely spot to lay out a blanket.

It was hot that July morning, in the nineties with the possibility of a thunderstorm coasting in over the Bighorns later, but for the moment, alone together, it was a little bit of heaven. He sat there, one knee up, giving her his attention. His coat was still in the Bronco, his hat was tilted low to cut the sun. They both were sweating a little, but enjoying the fine mid-summer weather.

She had gently pressed sunscreen on him for the eventuality the ever-present hat wasn't on, say, on the odd chance they were making out (did people still call it that?) but she knew he wouldn't use it if she didn't insist. Still, she had found an expired bottle of it in the medicine cabinet, no doubt a legacy from Martha, and quietly replaced it with new It came back to the same point.

"I want you around a long time, Sheriff," she had said, her arms looped around his neck.

She knew he wanted her around, too, although they had come to an agreement to put her out in the field again rather than keeping her back, as he had for a while after the Chance Gilbert nastiness. The surprise was that it had turned out that he was more affected than she by the whole situation.

As with that, when they talked about it, they could solve most anything. That was because with him, unlike any other man she had known, she did not need to pretend, just say what was in her head. She had long ago realized that anything else led them down to the path to disaster. _One_ of them not communicating was bad enough; if she went all obtuse on him, nobody knew what the hell was going on.

It had been four years of realization that despite working for an articulate and educated man when presented with constituents and suspects alike, any speeches public or _especially_ in private around feelings remained terse and dry and full of stumbles.

It was one of the things she had learned they shared and must fight —the tendency to internalize and not communicate what was important. She worked very hard not to give him any quarter to retreat back into himself, and tried her best to make her feelings equally known to him. The trick was always not to hurt the other; feelings didn't always have respect or ingrained politeness.

So here they were, having their first picnic after several months of seeing one another. Not a novelty, except perhaps, for the fact it was just the two of them, that they both had taken a day off, and she knew that he knew she had her phone with her. For her, it was one of the reasons they were there. Relationship logistics in a skeleton sheriff's department required _one _of them on call almost all the time.

He handed her a carefully wrapped box. For someone who let beer cans and trash litter his car, he could be meticulous when he chose. Cleaning his duty weapon, seeing to her needs in bed…

The smile came at the thought of the effort he had put into the large box equal to the effort he put into pleasing her in other venues.

"It's beautiful," she said, although she hadn't opened it, yet. Actually, she didn't want to, it was such an amazing presentation.

"Go on. Pretend Lizzie wrapped it."

She only paused another moment, accepted that challenge, ripped the paper to shreds and tore open the box, revealing a high-end Kevlar vest marked ASD on the back and SHERIFF on the front. Her smile grew.

"Fuck me! Just what I've always wanted."

It was. In her most recent budget requests, she had detailed tactical vests for everyone after the rash of shootings of law enforcement nationwide over the last couple of years. It would not benefit those already gone like the hapless trooper who had come onto Chance Gilbert's compound, but it could help their own department prevent injuries in untold future incidents.

Beneath the vest lay more tissue, and an exquisite diaphanous-lacey thing – almost a nothing to wear – certainly, nothing left to imagination, almost the opposite of the vest. Now she was openly grinning.

"Is this from Lizzie, too?"

Walt just gave an appreciative 'aw shucks' grin back. During a lull on a quiet night together, he had confessed Lizzie's manufactured home invasion. She had been shocked that Ruby had been complicit, but sure that the dispatcher had just wanted Walt to find some of his own happiness, and of course she had still been married to Sean at the time.

He had confessed to her while holding her close in the comparative safety of his darkened bedroom that it had been a difficult situation to resist, but that it had always been her image in his mind, even when Lizzie had thrown herself at him.

"Do I wear them together?"

"If you want," he said, one side of his mouth quirking up. "I wouldn't object."

She gave a little snort, then pulled a gift bag from out of her rucksack and handed it to him.

"Yours." She waited as he opened his, a very similar vest. He made a face she knew was because he hated wearing them, but gave a sheepish grin of acknowledgment. She would pay for more of those grins. They had been few and far between most of past four years.

"I know, you think you're bullet-proof, but you've proven you're not." She kissed his cheek and traced his shirt over the scar on his upper arm he received from the duel with Chance as a case in point.

He nodded.

She knew he still dreamed about it, and about Ridges. They were not good dreams, but now, she was there with him if he had them.

"There's one more thing in the bag," she directed, and he pulled out a small box. When he opened it, he lifted out a phone. He held it at arm's length, almost as though it was a rattlesnake or a rat, and _really_ made a face.

"SAT phone," she said. "Waterproof , in case you decide to go winter-swimming again. Just for emergencies. Keep it charged in the Bronco."

He sat not moving, face tilted down. His hat obscured his face. She reached a hand under it and touched his cheek in question. It came away wet with a solitary tear.

"Evidently we each want the other to stick around for a while," he finally said in his sandpaper voice.

She nodded. "Evidently." She didn't need to say more; she had thought for a long time they were kindred spirits. The gifts only validated that.

She scooted to snuggle against him, hoping he would have to use some of that sunscreen. Together they enjoyed the panorama before them, each savoring the promise of that summer, and hopefully many summers to come.


End file.
